The City of Malibu will officially unveil its first two poetry stones at Legacy Park during a dedication ceremony on Sunday, October 7 commemorating the City’s Poet Laureate program. The event will include a reading by Malibu Poet Laureate Ricardo Means Ybarra joined by Mandy Mulligan and local artists Ivo Spirov, Ako Eyong with live music by Mike and Shannon of the local band Karma Dealers.
“With these poetry stones, we have taken the Poet Laureate Program from a dream, to a program, to a tradition,” said Mayor Rick Mullen. “I applaud the passion and commitment that Ricardo has shown as he made the Poet Laureate Program into a robust poetry education program that will give the youth of Malibu a lifelong appreciation for this literary art.”
The first stone honors Ybarra’s tenure as Malibu’s first Poet Laureate. Ybarra’s poem “America,” a commission for Concert on the Bluffs 2017, is engraved on the black granite stone on the footpath in Legacy Park.
“The stones are a celebration of all the arts, the wonderful energy and creativity of Malibu, and of America,” Ybarra said. “Words to celebrate our community, our humanity, our neighbors and children—the love of all our brothers and sisters.”
The second stone bears an excerpt about poetry by emerging student poet Mandy Mulligan, engraved on a Verde slab of marble. Mulligan was one of Ybarra’s students who participated in the Poet Laureate Workshops in the Schools, a program sponsored by the City of Malibu and the Malibu Cultural Arts Commission.
“These two stones honor the power of poetry to reveal human yearnings and remind us of our better natures,” stated Poet Laureate Committee member Ann Buxie.